Migrating to AWS: Forklift Approach vs. Optimizing for AWS

There are a lot of questions that need to be answered when migrating to the AWS Cloud. Who will be handling the migration to AWS? What migration approach is right for you? Will you fully embrace the cloud architecture?

Using the forklift migration method might be tempting because it requires low effort and minimal planning. Forklift works exactly as the name implies, you pick up your existing environment and drop in into AWS. In this approach, elasticity and scalability of the cloud may not fully utilized. This option runs AWS like a virtual colocation environment.

We recommend that you take time to fully plan out your migration to AWS and ensure that you are taking full advantage of its capabilities. For starters, you need to fully understand the AWS platform which is constantly being enhanced with new services. Then you optimize for AWS which requires more effort and planning but allows you to fully utilize resources at all times. The auto scaling service (both scaling out and back in), means you will not pay for compute resources that you don’t need. In addition to the efficiency achieved with auto scaling, AWS can be built to be highly available using Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) and other services. In order to avoid potential issues with your applications, you need to build in redundancy and security to various layers of your AWS environment.

The forklift migration method to AWS might seem like the only option for some people due to lack of internal resources or experience. Finding the right people to successfully handle an AWS migration can prove challenging. Connectria offers AWS consulting along with AWS managed services to help people in this exact situation. Connectria’s team of AWS experts know how to architect for elasticity, security and high availability. Approaching your AWS migration with a team of experts to guide you may seem like an extra investment of resources, but once deployed you will realize the financial and operational benefits of an optimized AWS environment.

For more information on managed AWS services please contact an account manager at blog@connectria.com.